WWYD?

My 18 month old DS has a very popular name, albeit a slightly less popular spelling. When we chose it we didn't realise how popular it was, we thought "classic but not overused".

Since he was born we have heard the name constantly and I just don't love it as much as I used to.

I keep thinking of swapping his names round as using his middle name as his first. His middle name is far less common and has a lot of meaning to us. It would cause a lot of "how do you spell that?" remarks but tbh I have to spell his name out every time anyway because people always want to use the more common spelling.

The main thing that is stopping me is family, they don't know I'm thinking of changing it yet but they have had a long time of calling him by one name, I don't think they'd want to call him something different. It would also be confusing for elderly great grandparents.

Despite that I still can't shake the feeling that I really want to do it. Before he starts nursery or school and it becomes ingrained. WWYD?

I think it would be fine to swap them over legally, use his new first name (ex middle name) for school, friends, etc. and his new middle name (ex first name) for family members. Or you could keep it as it is legally and when he goes to school tell everyone that he uses his middle name on a day to day basis. Lots of my relatives use their middle names as a day to day name, although I think they adopted this in adulthood.

Do you ever already call him by his middle name? Why not see how that feels and see if he gets used to it.

Just give it a whirl. Squillions of kids have moved countries and taken on a whatever-icised version of their old name, or a fully new name. I think if you don't like his name, just say to him 'ooh you've turned out more of a James than a Henry, shall we call you James?'

DP shares my concern over the popularity of the current name, and would happily go along with swapping them, though he hadn't mentioned it until I did! The current middle name is his favourite name ever though.

I may try it out, mentioning it to the people we see a lot that it's not set in stone and we don't expect everyone to immediately start calling him the new name. He already answers to his name and a nickname based on it. I don't want to confuse him when he's still so little, but neither do I want him to get old enough that he won't answer to anyone else.

wishfulmakeupping the current name is a traditional Irish name, middle is a character from a famous movie. Don't really want to out myself!

I'm not sure, I've found that when you have a child you "hear" their name everywhere anyway, you're just more attuned to it

You have to think would it bother you more if you swapped names, he was known as his second name and then by chance ended up in school with someone else with that same name. This has happened to 2 different families I know. They picked names that I would have said we're rare, then the child has started school and a child with the same name has been in the same class.

He's only young and everyone will adapt quickly. Just do it and have something you love and prefer. Email folk saying that you have decided to use x as his first name. After a wobble about his original name, DH and yourself feel x would suit him more. I think you will find people more supportive then you expect.

I know you've already decided but definitely do it! My DS is Edward and was Edward up until about 18 months when we started calling him Ted. It was always in my plan to have his nickname as Ted as I really am not keen on Ed or Eddie so I wanted the shortened name to be ingrained before preschool and school kicked off

It's worked for us, he knows his name is Ted and refers to himself as such, but conversely also knows he can be called Edward.

On nursery forms and now on the pre school application forms I've written his name as Edward, known as Ted. No problems at all. Do it now while he's young enough to accept his 'new' name

Definitely give it a go. It's really your last opportunity to do it as whilst he undoubtedly knows his name now, it will be nothing for him to start answering to his middle name and in a little while wont even remember being called his first name.